Introduction to Virtual Reality: Insights from Marks and Spencer

DIGITAL SKILLS
RESEARCH METHODS
PROJECT

INTRODUCTION
 Digital literacy can be defined as a kind of functional skills that are required for
operating and communicating new and advance technology.
 Today it has become important for individuals to learn digital literacy skills so that they
can easily use, handle and communicate using advance digital technologies, find and
access digital content as per their need and requirement so that one can develop their
own understanding in an appropriate manner.
 This presentation will lay emphasis upon Marks and Spencer organization, modern
technology used by M&S, challenges faced by them before introduction of modern
technology, insight of technology, impact of technology and lessons learnt from it.
Modern technology focused upon in this presentation is Virtual reality.
 It is a stimulated experience that can either be similar or different from real world
experience. This technology is used in organizations for different purposes such as for
entertainment purpose, educating clients, enhance their shopping experience and for
many other purposes.

Background of Marks and Spencer
organization
 Marks and Spencer or M&S is a major British retail sector multinational organization that
operates globally.
 M&S was established in 1884 by Michael Marks and Thomas Spencer. Its main
headquarter is in London, England.
 They sell different kinds of products but are specialized in selling products like cloths,
home products and food products. most of these products are developed by Marks and
Spencer on its own.
 They have their stores in more than 57 countries all over the world and have approximately
1463 stores globally. Out of these 1463 stores more than 900 stores are in UK itself in
which 600 stores only sell food products. They are one of the largest UK’s clothing
retailers.
 They are market leaders in UK especially in terms of Womenswear and Menswear clothing
items. they have more than 80,000 employees working for them. Other than this they also
have a subsidiary i.e. M&S Bank which is owned by HSBC bank since 2004.

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 M&S was established by partnership of Michael Marks and
Thomas Spencer and started their own business in 1884.
 In 1901 they opened their own stall in centre aisle famous Penny
Bazaar. Within 20 years they opened many stalls in various
locations of North West of England.
 Till early 20th century they made a reputation of selling British
made goods and after some times they established relationship
with British manufactures and started selling their cloths under St
Michael Brand name.
 M&S is a public limited company which is listed on London stock
Exchange and is also a constitute of FTSE 250 Index and
previously in FTSE 100 Index from its creation until 2019. In
clothing sector their market share in UK is 11 percent in UK.

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 Marks and Spencer have always been slow in adopting new and advance technologies
due to which from time to time they had to face issues.
 Such as in 2001 usage of credit cards had started but they did not accept credit cards for
payment. As a result, their sales declined and they faced huge financial loss. They faced
decline in overall profit by more than 30 percent.
 So as a result of this loss they had started accepting credit cards for payment which
further helped them to enhance their sales and recover profit till a certain extent.
 But today slowly they had started adopting advance technologies for enhancement of
their slae, profit and revenue.
 In fact, they have included some of these advance technologies within their business
model as well. they nave set a research and development department where they spend
some amount upon advance technologies for transforming M&S into digital first retailers.
They also sell their products online and provide free home delivery to their customers as
well in order to enhance their shopping experience.

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 Due to advancement in technology it has become a compulsion for organizations to adopt
advance and new digital technology within business.
 In order to sustain within the marketing environment in which Marks and Spencer
operates they need to focus upon adopting new and advance digital technology within
their business.
 Marks and Spencer already have a negative brand image of selling cloths for older
people.
 Youngsters think that it is a brad for older people and that do not sell cloths for
youngsters. They have many times faced losses because of not adopting advance
technology.
 So, in order to overcome this image, they have focused upon development of five years
transformation plan in which they have focused upon introducing new and advance
technology within their business in order to boose sales, attract more customers and
enhance their profitability.